Thursday, April 25, 2013
Punitive God Makes Ya Crazy
"Many people find comfort in religious faith, but a provocative new study links certain beliefs with emotional problems. The study, published April 10 in the Journal of Religion & Health, showed that people who believe in an angry, vengeful god are more likely to suffer from social anxiety, paranoia, obsessional thinking, and compulsions." >>>
Isn't this kind of obvious? Does it really take a study to establish this? It seems rather obvious to me. What this article calls a "Punitive God" is virtually identical to what I call "coercive morality."
People that believe in or are drawn to that kind of belief, either are already sick or will soon become so, since it confuses love with hatred, good with evil, and morality with immorality, and it does so with the imprimatur of the Deity, so you'd better fucking damn well listen and believe every fucking last word of it scumbag, or your're screwed forever, sitting in a fiery hellscape with demons playing tictactoe on your taint with razor blades, all because you didn't believe that God loves you more than you can imagine.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/24/religion-mental-health-angry-god-brain_n_3097025.html?utm_hp_ref=science
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Incidentally, read the comments section of that post on Huffington. It's a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteYou should read about Jesus' Divine MERCY by Faustina Kawalska.
DeleteNon-fiction.
Your fixation with the Old Testament sheds light on your fears whereas the historical accounts of The 4 Gospels along with Faustina point to the ever Merciful Christ who loves you and ardently desires to shower you with Graces from Heaven.
You obviously do not properly understand the Christian Faith which is understandable.
However, without a deep and thorough study of it, you come off foolish in your efforts to besmirch it.
"The study's authors are convinced that the type of god one believes in can indeed affect one's emotional state."
ReplyDeleteMaybe one's emotional state(caused by one's environment while growing up) affects one's perception of what type of god one might believe in.
OTOH if one can break free of the notion of gods in principle, then one might be able to see(the light?) that you are what you are because of your unique circumstances which you had no control over.
For example, you cannot believe certain things about 'the World' or 'life in general' if you don't have the capacity to do that, if you haven't learned it. Now your genes come into play because you may be being told, somebody may be trying to teach you to break free from your conditioning(unless you actually believe you know more that you know because you were given that 'permission' to understand.
To put it in another way, if you had a person in your life that you respected and he/she told you some 'secret of life', you'd find that much harder to distance yourself from than if I(for example) told you something and you had zero respect for my opinion.
Point is, opinion is fine, but if you happen to be teaching, deliberately or just by the way, a youngster, and that kid takes you at your word because you happen to be a loving, caring person to that child, you may be fucking him/her up completely if you don't emphasize that what you're saying isn't "LAW", it's only how you find yourself believing that 'great truth' whatever it might be, because of YOUR upbringing.
Funny thing it is: it's you atheists who believe in a vengrful God.
DeleteIt's no wonder you all seem either angry, frustrated or well a bit crazy.
Funny thing, that is indeed.
Funny thing is that you believe that it is us atheists who believe in a vengeful God.
DeleteSince atheism is the opposite of theism than atheists don't believe there are any kind of gods, how could you believe that we atheists believe in a vengeful God then?
Funny thing, that is indeed! No?
This one's for u Ste B....
ReplyDeletehttp://pictoraltheology.blogspot.com/
Funny stuff P. TYVM.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/baby-burned-alive-chile-child-killed-antichrist-ritual-sacrifice_n_3155893.html?utm_hp_ref=world
ReplyDeleteBaby Burned Alive: Chile Arrests 4 Accused Of Killing Child For Being 'Antichrist' In Ritual Sacrifice
...speaking about religion and the crazy....
So let me get this straight:you afford death to your very own soul over some extreme fanatics?
ReplyDeleteWhy bother seeking out these extreme examples when you could be focusing on the greater numbers of Christians and Christian organizations who do so much good in the world?
God is always ready to forgive you of your sins.
Can you not be forgiving as well?
God will deal with those who commit evil acts while simultaneously professing their so-called Christian Faith.
You should focus on the Mother Teresa's of the world, etc.
Atheists: where's your outrage over abortion which brutally dismembers arms and legs, etc of the baby, oh brood of vipers and hypocrites are ye.
DeleteI bet you aren't even aware that your president has recently allowed for post aborted baby survivors absolutely no rights whatsoever to any healthcare measures!
Born, live, in pain, hungry, in need of being cuddled- a person by your country's legal standards. and yet. being denied. healthcare.
Obama "care".
What a joke.
And you Americans sit idly by. Why is that??
Do you not see why the rest of the world hates you? Why the rest of the world snickers at you?
Many simply cannot comprehend the stupidity we see going on over in America. We thought you guys were actually intelligent!
Pro-American we thought you were. With were being the correct tense.
The rest of the world is just waiting to see your country fail just as we did what with toying around with socialism/communism and various evil dictatorships.
The sad thing is you guys are actually buying into the scam and don't even realize what you're in for.
Where is your outrage at christians that are ONLY concerned with the unborn and could not care less for them after they are born? If you had any, we could talk. Because we don't approve of abortion either; we just recognize that a woman cannot be forced to have a baby. We seek to lessen the numbers of abortions. Can we meet half way? No. Why? Because to you it's all or nothing.
DeleteStart caring for the poor and disenfranchised and helping to establish better and more efficient social safety nets and path of opportunity for the poor, and we'd respect you a lot more. To only seem to care for the unborn like that, is bald faced hypocrisy, and you could see that if you were a true follow of the path of Jesus instead of merely fancying yourself one out of pride.
Mate, you're so clueless and mixed up about so many things.
DeleteIt's no use continuing with you.
This is a couple of days ago now, my post is on FB.
ReplyDelete"Had a bit of a battle of words with a guy in Walmart's parking lot this afternoon. He used my wife's illness to introduce Jesus via faith-healing.
They're very pushy. For example I said that his healing(which he claimed), sure, was on account of his faith! He said no, since Muslims have faith too!
I replied, his faith in Jesus. But no, he was on a track to tell me that I was on my way to Hell! LOL
I started off by saying that God, at the time was the God of the Jews. Once again, a quick change of perspective, God is the God of us all! But he knew what I meant, he was just laying down some smoke. Then he shifted to Paul, more smoke since surely Jesus lived and died before Paul unless Paul was getting future references from Jesus now and there were already churches before Jesus did his thing.
It wasn't too many more minutes before he was telling me, mad as a hatter, that it was no wonder I was miserable and that I was going to Hell!"
So, is he worried about my soul going to Hell, or is he worried that he can clearly see my POV himself and he knows I, that is both of us, the Christian and I, cannot escape the illogic of the Gospels?
God, we hear, came down to Earth, in the flesh(as they say) among his Chosen People.
God is all seeing, he knew what was going to happen, the Jewish clerics had no choice but to deny Jesus' godhood, if that is even what these garbled stories are telling us.
Is Jesus coming straight out and telling his peers(Jesus as the man that is) that he is God incarnate? No, the story relies on wordplay like, "It is you who said that!", "Only GOD is good..", and such when he is accused straight out. (basically, Jesus didn't say he was god to them, he just hinted very strongly.)
We're told that although Jesus came to save all mankind he concentrated on his people(also HIS Chosen People) but he is using them(HIS Chosen People) as a foil, he is going to force them to charge him with blasphemy, no less, to become a sacrifice for all mankind, and the Chosen People go under the bus.
But this is the plan from day one, it has to be, how else is Jesus going to get sacrificed? Sure a few of the Chosen People might follow God/Jesus' "new" teachings but the MOST religious of them will not, the clerics/teachers of HIM(recall Jesus is, after all, Yahweh(I AM THAT I AM), and he chose to come to fulfill a supposed prophecy of their old prophets!
In effect when Jesus had the Sanhedrin charge him with blasphemy, not only was Jesus sacrificed, nearly the entire Jewish population was sacrificed with him. They, sticking to their guns that Jesus was not the promised messiah, lost their temple and their land, and not even for the first time.
The very people who had sustained the notion that there was one, and ONLY one true GOD, the one that they prayed to, were thrown under the bus by that self-same, now THREE-IN-ONE God, by the very act of protecting HIS oneness!
That, right there is Confusion Technique at it's finest! It is the purest of confusing bullshit. At ANY time GOD could have revealed HIMSELF to the Pharaohs or the Persian emperors or the Roman emperors and so on, HE could have outright told the Hebrew patriarchs of HIS three-in-one nature, and making up ad hoc reasons why HE didn't is just you wanting to keep fooling yourself that there's any truth at all to it.
Isn't that right?
Hold on. Ok, God spoke from the Heavens in the OT to His Chosen people- the Jews.
DeleteHe showed His Presence in the Burning Bush, The pillar of fire by night and smoke through day, through peals of Heavenly Thunder did he speak to them. He sent the likes of Moses (Ten Commandments) and Abraham, King David etc.
Many refused Him.
So, He sent his only begotten Son to preach of His Heavenly Kingdom. Jesus walked in the midst of the Jews as well as the Gentiles.
Problem is, the Pharisees (JEWS) wanted to kill Jesus after he performed many miracles and even after His raising Lazarus and others from the dead!
On more than one occasion The Holy Spirit to the people's of the earth as in The Baptism at the River Jordan, at Pentecost, et cetera.
As for the pharoahs, they sent Joseph, on one occasion and Moses - whereby the pharoahs STUBBORNLY rejected even after all Moses showed them an even after hearing SEVERAL messages from God through Moses to them.
Time and time again they rejected God.
So, God knew when He wasn't wanted, being a Gentleman, no longer bothered them.
As for us, we atre called to know Him, love Him and serve Him by the gift of FAITH.
We are created by God the Father, Baptized in The Holy Spirit and saved through Christ's Death and Ressurection.
We walk by Faith, bearing good Fruits (as best we can) and if we're in tune with Our Lord, if we love Him and obey Him, we can discern His working in us and in those around us.
He did not leave us orphans, as He promised to send His Holy Spirit to be with us. He even commanded us to do in memory of Him, the breaking of the Holy Manna; thereby making Himself present in it for us. "he who eats and drinks of my flesh has Eternal life".
Now, many reject this as a hard saying to hear, but, honestly, IF after ALL of these things The Triune God has done, said, revealed, given. and suffered. many still reject Him. That's their CHOICE.
Face it you reject God. Everyone gets it.
But why you waste your time bloviations about it. Well no we don't get it. You deny history and God Himself yet you spend all your focus on Him in quite an infertile and rather futile manner.
God doesn't go to those who reject him as He knows it will be a waste of His time.
ReplyDeleteHe longs for all of His children to know and love Him.
He leaves it to our free will to make the choice to move closer to Him.
The Pharisees were too busy worshipping the letter of the Law with hearts cold as stone. They couldn't wait to find a reason, the slightest of reasons to persecute Jesus.
They were miserable nitpickers.
Sounds a lot like you guys here on this blog.
Thanks!!
DeleteJesus, if he existed, and any of the gospels are to be believed, was a lunatic with a penchant for humanism.
ReplyDeleteXtianity promotes his brand of cognitive dissonance: existential humanism vs. nihilism. It is mentally, as equally sadistic as the Hebrews' genocides for their tribal deity.
Sorry, you are flat out lying.
ReplyDeleteMost unconvincing, indeed, mate.
One cannot convince a statue to not be made of stone, my friend. Your filter will only let in things that you already agree with; the rest it dismisses immediately with extreme prejudice. Literally. We atheists have asked ourselves the questions that you are taught not to ask yourselves, and that's the very reason that we're atheists, and THAT is the very reason that your religion teaches you not to ask them.
DeleteYou're merely projecting onto Christians what you yourself think and believe.
DeleteYou keep banging on about things in such a way that says to me that you're only in this for the wind-up.
A great example of verbosity and vacuity at its best.
Not to mention ignorant of true and factual recorded History.
ReplyDeleteYou, sir are a typical denier. Of course your choice.
You live up to your moniker, I'll give you that much.
The bible is not history. If you think so, you're already far down a false path.
DeleteHello Paul, and welcome. This subject is weird that way. NBoth sides see the other as deniers and blind believers. One side is right. You belive it's yours, we think it's ours.
ReplyDeletePharisees were wrapped up in the letter of the law, parsing scripture and such, which is why Jesus disapproved of them. Harry is no such thing. Are you perhaps? This you must ask yourself. It has to come from you. Critical thinking, I mean.
Welcome Anonymous as well, since I only just realized that you are not Paul.
DeleteYou should read about Jesus' Divine MERCY by Faustina Kawalska.
ReplyDeleteNon-fiction.
-----------------
Sure it is. You wish. :-)
Christians construct an alternate reality in their minds, one that conveniently is not amenable (pun unintended) to logical examination and rational discourse. It's conditioning of the mind, pure and simple. Your critical thinking ability has been intentional altered, so you are blinded to what you have let yourself become. Pride, the sin kind, has been nurtured in your breasts so that you see all others as wrong and yet never think to question yourself or your beliefs. They feel too good and right and true for you to analyze them dispassionately. You see, emotions always trump logic, and they always have. When you're emotionally invested in a belief system, logic cannot touch you.
Based upon knowing this, I predict that you will attempt to basically tell me now "I know you are, but what am I?"
I just realized that Anon is not Paul. Two christians! I like that. We needed the infusion of different thoughts here. Or beliefs. Lol.
ReplyDelete"Atheists: where's your outrage over abortion which brutally dismembers arms and legs, etc of the baby, oh brood of vipers and hypocrites are ye."
ReplyDeleteI'm pro-life, mostly.
Abortion is like any other form of killing, you should have good reasons, and "it's my body" therefore "I can kill my baby" doesn't remotely count.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I don't consider a clump of cells to be a baby.
I absolutely am against late term abortions as well... if it's a blastocyst, that's not the same as a baby. Of course (and I'm sure christians don't believe this) most liberals are not IN FAVOR of any kind of abortion... it's a disgusting thing to me, but there are other factors involved in making the decision.
ReplyDeleteAnd funny thing, christians seem to see it as a decision as well but pretend they don't when they're talking to liberals.
See:
"Sarah and her husband, Todd Palin, issued a statement saying they are "proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby"
So it was a decision, huh? A choice?
One they would cheerfully take away from others. Hypocrites.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/01/palin.daughter/
ReplyDeleteForgot to paste in the Palin link...
Again, we can discuss the abortion issue with christians, as long as they do not insist on being hypocrites about the concept of "Pro-Life."
ReplyDeleteYou can't defend fetuses and then cheerfully vote for policies that cause babies and children to starve, or just be malnourished, or have no opportunities, or poor health care. You can't do that and still retain your High Horse credibility. It just makes you look and sound like fanatics with no ability to see their own hypocrisy.
Start to care for the already-born as much as the unborn and then we can have a conversation. Abd by care, I mean POLICIES that you VOTE FOR, not giving a few bucks to the poor to assuage your own consciences.
Amen! Preach on preacher!
DeleteAll in a saint's day, my friend.
DeleteI am astonished at your hypocrisy and ignorance as it relates to things like reality, life and history and facts.
DeleteYou come off to me as someone who's autistic or something with either learning and or emotional disorder. Either way, I don't see you chatting on with any decent amount of cogency.
oh brood of vipers and hypocrites are ye.
ReplyDelete-----------------
I just noticed this. Nice. Do you see yourself as Jesus in the Temple or something? Boy, you guys are sooooo good at ignoring the thing about "judge not lest ye be judged."
"And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"
I have a request for our two (I think) new christian friends:
ReplyDeleteIf you post here out of schadenfreude, out of the need to go flame some "vipers," then you really should meditate on that. Unless you think hatred is a sacrament or something.
Ok, here's my question to the Christian section. Having claimed that your beliefs are based on 'historical facts', I'd ask you to explain what you think about LDS and Scientology. These are two successful faiths that have originated in modern times. Both were founded by individuals known by their contemporaries as con artists, yet there are millions of people world wide who swear by their 'truth'. I am a bit curious as to what Christians make of this.
ReplyDeleteAlso a correction to the notion that we are obsessed with gods. Actually we aren't. What we are tired of is having to deal with the excess baggage of the various religious groups that complicate every political discussion in this country. If religion was simply an individual's spiritual pursuit, we wouldn't care at all. But when it acts like a big PAC we do.
ReplyDeleteA PAC that insists not only that it is always right, but also that if your opinion differs, that you are a "viper" or some such thing, to be loathed and fought against as Evil.
ReplyDeleteIt's frankly getting a bit tiresome.
God doesn't go to those who reject him as He knows it will be a waste of His time.
ReplyDelete-----------------
I find this a fascinating comment. God, being all-powerful and all-knowing, apparently knows when he is not all-powerful. If god presents himself to you believers in a way that you can believe and that's why you're believers, he can certainly do so to us as well. He would know, after all, just what in our minds would work. He would know just what to say to us, and how to say it. If your Holy Spirit is real, then it would be able to sway anybody. I know personally that if god spoke to me for instance, in my head, and spoke in such a way that I didn't just think I'd gone insane, that I'd have to give the idea of god being real some serious creedence. I never wanted to not believe in god; I just needed more proof that it wasn't all just a story repeated down through they years for long enough that its believers mistake it for real, and oddly enough, I could never find any. And religious people don't do themselves any favors by saying things like "look at a sunrise" or whatever, since those things have rational explanations and god doesn't.
People are easily fooled, so imagine how much more easily they were fooled two millennia ago. Knowing this, no amount of people just telling me and insisting to me that they're right about this and I'm wrong when they're the ones with no proof and their side has NEVER ONCE won an argument with science, will ever convince me that god is real without something concrete... and that's not possible, is it?
Pure Bollocks.
DeleteNow that's what I call a well-thought-out rebuttal. Not.
DeleteAn Xtian apparently thinks your thoughtful reply is about testicles. My only question is what kind?
DeleteIf you nice christians are still around, and I hope you are, a question, a serious one: How does or did god speak to you?
ReplyDeleteAlso, if god exists outside of time, then how is trying to show himself to us a waste of it for him? He's got all the time he needs for anything.
ReplyDeleteIf you don't pray or accept the gift of Faith- what's the point of even furthering this?
ReplyDeleteIf you chose to be filled with undue negative bias/emotions to the point of bloviations blah blah and pop psych then YOU deal with that question on your own. It's too bad for you, but that's your choice.
You're like a little whiny deviant blowhard who's thick in the head.
If you have issues with God, you need to take it to prayer, mate.
Good luck with that.seriously.
Ta.
"If you don't pray or accept the gift of Faith- what's the point of even furthering this?"
DeleteHey bitch, if you don't accept my cock what's the point of talking to you? Let me put it like this, no fucky sucky, we're done.
Why?
Cause I'm a real man.
So no discussion, you were just here to bloviate yourself. We're a little more serious than you're used to. Grow up.
ReplyDeleteIt's always all about you. You guys have egos the size of a skyscraper and minds as closed as a time-locked safe, withthe timer set at "judgement day." You hate us so much you will not talk to us unless we agree with you and unless we all of a sudden convert to your god, and yet when you come here your ACTIONS show us and anybody caring to look that you hold us in disdain and loathe everything we say, so I ask you, why on earth would we ever consider joining a group of people whose only common bond seems to be a joint hatred of people like us?
ReplyDeleteAs immature as a newborn, and as hateful as the Satan that you are so afraid of. Now, that's attractive.
You're seriously creeping me out.
DeleteI just re-read my entire post to you, because you said I creeped you out. How? I don't see it. Are you creeped out by anybody that tries to get you to see things from a different viewpoint? and if you are, doesn't that actually prove my point, that you're conditioned not to accept new knowlege if it disagrees with your beliefs?
DeleteAnd no answer to the scripture that I quoted. You so casually disregard the parts of your Good Book that contradict your own actions and direct you to be different from that, to follow a narrower path of loving othersregardles of differences... When you call yourselves christians, you're taking your own lord's name in vain. Pretty funny from our point of view. Annoying from Jesus' though.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe nor do I consider you an expert on Sacred Scriptures. And, if you truly are an atheist, why do you waste do much time on such things?
DeletePurely a rhetorical.
There's no reason to stay on here.
No intelligent beings on this blog.
Nice try with the spammer message, but you don't offer anything here on this blog for me.
So I have to be an expert on Ancient Scriptures in order for you to what exactly? Believe a direct quote from your own holy book?
DeleteIt's your book, dude. I was just point ing out the parts that you choose to ignore.
You truly dissapoint me. Dust in the wind... that's what you turned out to be.
I also wonder how you even read the bible at all if you require an expert to read it to you. I mean, I give you actual direct quotes form your own book and you manage to discount them because I'm not a theologian? Are you even serious? How obvious can you be that you just hate me and will not listen to anything I say because of that, even to the extent of finding fault with your own scripture?
DeleteIf you don't pray or accept the gift of Faith- what's the point of even furthering this?
ReplyDelete--------------
Your mind is narrower than the edge of a knife, and hurts others just as much. Again, just fucking grow up. We're not interested in how deficient you believe we are if that's allyou have to say. Have you nothing worthwhhile to say? Are you such an empty vessel? Is it that you lack the ability to argue, to stand up for your belief, and so, realizing this, you descend to insults and pettiness? Yeah, that's it, isn't it?
If you have issues with God, you need to take it to prayer, mate.
ReplyDelete------------
How thick does a person's head have to be to think an atheist has issues with something he doesn't believe in? What we have issues with, is any one religion being so PROUD as to believe that it has the right to dictate to everybody that they have to follow their religion's belief system or else. That's beyond rude. That's you guys being assholes. Worship your god all you want to; we have no issue with that. We don't care. Knock yourselves out. But try to dictate to us based on YOUR beliefs, and we will be angry. Anybody would be. If it were you in a Muslim country and they were dictating to you how you needed to behave based on Muslim religious law, and you'd hate that shit too. So stop it. Stop being evil in the name of good.
I dunno guys, I thought I was being reasonable with him. Or them. Or whomever.... was I? was I being rude? Honest opinions appreciated here, because I wanna know.
ReplyDeleteFunny how when I ask a christian to imagine that they were someone else and have empathy, they freak out, insult me, and run away.
ReplyDeleteB I don't think you were particularly hard on them. When you are dealing with someone who defines intelligence as mindless acceptance of some idea they have swallowed hook, line, and sinker, you can't expect much.
ReplyDeleteThanks. He had me thinking... I don't want to be unfair, in fact I'm trying even more lately not to be, but this was just silliness. I remember speaking to two people on HP and telling them they could come here if they wanted to have further discussion, one was a very bright Jewish man, and the other was a christian that seemed okay... I guess the latter was not so okay after all. Or someone else accepted the invite. Oh well.
DeleteNice try with the spammer message
ReplyDelete------------
I told two people on Huffington Post that if they wanted to continue the discussion that this is where they could find me, and I get insulted as a spammer? You're the one that came here armed with a rubber band to a gun fight, and now you complain? I mean, what did you expect to find here, a bunch of people breathlessly waiting for you to illuminate them? If you can't speak for your religion, why do you even follow it?
Paul says, "Hold on."
ReplyDeleteClearly we can expect a direct rebuttal of my comment which explains how illogical God would be being if the events in the Gospels were true. It wouldn't make sense for Jesus, being the prophesied Jewish Messiah to end up throwing his own people under the bus, right? If the prophesied Messiah is anything, it's not to facilitate condemning themselves.
Paul goes on, "Ok, God spoke from the Heavens in the OT to His Chosen people- the Jews.
He showed His Presence in the Burning Bush, The pillar of fire by night and smoke through day, through peals of Heavenly Thunder did he speak to them. He sent the likes of Moses (Ten Commandments) and Abraham, King David etc."
Yes King David, who Jesus is supposedly a direct descendant of. Jesus, if he is the prophesied messiah is anchored to God's Chosen people by this prophecy alone, right?
Paul continues, "Many refused Him."
I see this merits it's own line, this is Paul's theme. This is Paul's point. We are just some more of the 'many who have refused Him', right Paul? But notice how Paul presupposes the truth of the OT, expects us to presuppose along with him, and so far hasn't refuted one point I made about the illogic of the Gospel 'happenings'!
Paul moves on anyways, "So, He sent his only begotten Son to preach of His Heavenly Kingdom."
Yes, that clears things up for me, how about you? God, after showing off all his macho powers, what with the Flood, the destruction of Sodom, the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the Manna from Heaven, the smoke by day, fire by night stuff, the stopping of the day going by and so on, no, and after all that 'refusal' in the face of such power, HE sends his son as a guy to preach, to tell us stories and parables and such, that should do it, right Paul?
(contd.)
(contd.)
ReplyDeletePaul continues his point, "Jesus walked in the midst of the Jews as well as the Gentiles."
Finally some attempt at a rebuttal of my comment that Jesus came to Earth as a Jew, among the Jews, for the Jews, as a direct descendant of a really Jewy Jew, David, to fulfill a Jewish prophecy that the Jews will be saved by a messiah!
Notice how Jesus didn't just come for the Jews though, as Paul points out he came for non-Jews(that's what Gentile means, right, non-Jews!) too!
This is my point though. Jesus certainly came to fulfill an O.T. prophecy, a prophecy concerned only with God's Chosen People, but they mention non-Jews TOO! How compelling Paul! Can't you atheists SEE? They mention non-Jews TOO!
Paul moves along, "Problem is, the Pharisees (JEWS) wanted to kill Jesus after he performed many miracles and even after His raising Lazarus and others from the dead!"
Yea, that's what I said! How does this help your case against what I said, Paul? Y'see the Jews aren't believing it for one minute! From God's perspective, well he's all seeing, he could have seen his coming down the pipe, right?
Paul gets mysterious(to me at least), "On more than one occasion The Holy Spirit to the people's of the earth as in The Baptism at the River Jordan, at Pentecost, et cetera."
Oh well, there was a few hints? I guess my argument that the Gospels are illogical, the reasoning at the beginning, that the ancient Chosen Peoples' prophecy came true(the Messiah), compared to the end where the Chosen People get thrown under the bus(in favor of the "non-Jews"(Gentiles), and on account of their belief in the one true God. Well, those hints make it all 'right' now, right?
Paul's defense of God's inaction when it comes to convincing non-Jews earlier, "As for the pharaohs, they sent Joseph, on one occasion and Moses - whereby the pharaohs STUBBORNLY rejected even after all Moses showed them an even after hearing SEVERAL messages from God through Moses to them."
Yes, the "REJECTED" theme. Of course.
(contd. again)
(contd again)
ReplyDeletePaul, "Time and time again they rejected God."
In case we hadn't got Paul's 'rejected' theme, and the HARDENING of Pharaoh's heart reimagined as God TRYING to persuade Pharaoh, and not trying to just bully him, right!?
Paul moves along, "So, God knew when He wasn't wanted, being a Gentleman, no longer bothered them."
Right! God is a gentleman for NOW! After the walk in the sand(leaving no archeological evidence whatsoever), God assists his Chosen People in wiping out weaker forces, since, you know, why not, they were weak, no need to be gentlemanly at all there.
Paul proceeds, "As for us, we are called to know Him, love Him and serve Him by the gift of FAITH."
Yes, you are in Paul's power, you are getting sleepy, you will dance like a chicken then wake up convinced that Paul has explained how the Gospels are completely logical, how it all makes complete sense! How could I have forgotten the 'gift of FAITH' thing? Doh!
Paul attacks, "We are created by God the Father, Baptized in The Holy Spirit and saved through Christ's Death and Ressurection."
This is what we call an assertion! Not sure what it is supposed to have to do with how the Gospels are illogical, how they make no sense at all in their own storyline.
Paul is on a roll, "We walk by Faith, bearing good Fruits (as best we can) and if we're in tune with Our Lord, if we love Him and obey Him, we can discern His working in us and in those around us."
Wait, is he saying that the Gospels don't have to make sense at all, is THAT Paul's apology? Just believe and the Faith, and the Fruit thing, be in tune and love and obey, and don't bother your head if Jesus came to be the Jewish Messiah and turned into the non-Jew "Messiah".
Paul, "He did not leave us orphans, as He promised to send His Holy Spirit to be with us. He even commanded us to do in memory of Him, the breaking of the Holy Manna; thereby making Himself present in it for us. "he who eats and drinks of my flesh has Eternal life"."
Paul is hoping to bore us into submission at this point.
More Paul, "Now, many reject this as a hard saying to hear, but, honestly, IF after ALL of these things The Triune God has done, said, revealed, given. and suffered. many still reject Him. That's their CHOICE."
The 'rejection theme' again.
Paul concludes,"Face it you reject God. Everyone gets it.
But why you waste your time bloviations about it. Well no we don't get it. You deny history and God Himself yet you spend all your focus on Him in quite an infertile and rather futile manner."
So, I say the Gospels make no sense and explain why. Paul counters with this 'rejection' crap and the 'bloviating' thing.
Just exactly like that guy in the Wallmart parking lot!
Either the Gospel stories make sense or they don't. If you, Paul, think that you throwing insults at me makes nonsense into sense, well, insult away, apparently it's all you've got, so hang on to it. .
but you don't offer anything here on this blog for me.
ReplyDelete-----------------
What were you expecting? Cake?
Pboy, wasn't that refreshing? Paul comes here and crashed and burned in about an hour. He seemed to be expecting to pull out his Jesus card and convert us all just by flashing it. I mean, he had no argument whatsoever and seemed shocked that we did! Talk about his faith making him simple! How simple do you have to be to go to a blog called Saint Brian the GODLESS and expect a house full of easy converts?
ReplyDeleteNo kidding. I was just putting my, "Jesus/God changes agenda midstream!", idea together here. It's fucking amazing to me that I can throw that out there and the weak-sauce answer is a bloody sermon on how we're all simply 'rejecting God'!
DeleteYou have to be a presuppositionalist in the first place, just assume everyone else is too, then anyone who calls 'bullshit' isn't not believing in the supposed existence of God, no, they're 'rejecting God', of course.
I've presupposed the fairies at the bottom of the garden a few times, it's easy.
I wonder if Anon is still around.
ReplyDeletePboy, I get the impression from Paul and others that some of the simpler christians see their belief system as like this amazing, impressive, intricate jewel that they are absolutely dazzled and amazed by and love so very much that when they show it to other people, they absolutely and fully expect them to see all of that in it to and just genuflect immediately or something, and when that doesn't happen, why, those people must be evil vipers or little whiny deviant blowhards or whatever other hateful thing that comes to their fevered minds.
ReplyDeleteAs I was saying, all you have to do is presuppose that it's all true and everyone knows it's all true then there is no argument against it, the door has already been pre-slammed-shut.
DeleteI guess the first question to ask a Christian is if they can even imagine that the Bible could even possibly be untrue.
ReplyDeleteIf they cannot even imagine that to be the case, they're now just trying to convince us that we're just rejecting God, hence Paul's insistence that the Bible is a historical document which cannot be questioned by anyone!
Not anyone at all, especially a time-wasting, bloviating, history denying, God denying, infertile and futile 'focuser' like myself, we hear!
So, Paul, is it possible that the Bible is just a supposed land claim by the Jews, the only prophecies of which came true because they were self-fulfilling? Is it possible that early Christians scoured the O.T. for supposed prophecies to purport that they were fulfilled by the story of Jesus?
A story which, no matter how many times it has been paraphrased, cannot be made internally consistent!
It was a useful visit however. It helped me complete "Sophisticated Theology: The Apologist's Handbook". I think it covers pretty much the full range from Eric to this latest guy.
ReplyDeleteI think that most people are like this guy and Eric runs interference for them. Eric wouldn't be pissed at some guy like Paul, not even if Paul is a YEC or an IDer, which, truth be told they all have to be, since 'goddidit' is a given for them.
DeleteAnd when (and where) can I read that handbook, Sir Pliny?
DeleteIt is posted on my site, Ste B.
Deletehttp://carm.org/presuppositional-apologetics
ReplyDeleteNotice how they can either presuppose that there is a God and the Scriptures are history OR they can accuse atheists/people who believe that evolution is a fact/people of any other religion of being presupposionalists.
Either way they're 'right' and everyone else, whether they have no presuppositions or those they accuse of having the wrong presuppositions, are wrong.
They don't come on your blog to argue whether the Gospels are consistent, they argue that it doesn't matter at all whether they're consistent or no, and anyone who has the gall to suggest that they're not consistent is, well, bloviating!
There'll be no attempt at all to even admit that such an argument could possibly be valid since, it must be bloviation, y'see?
And, why would we want to spoil their fantasy? How dare we! How could we possibly have so little respect for their unthinking acceptance? How dare I have called their unthinking acceptance, unthinking acceptance?
How dare I try to focus on making sense? Nono, they refuse to even try to rebut an argument like that since it must be of Satan, right Paul?
I'm really tired of being thought of as satanic by a bunch of people that can't even put an argument together, when I believe in neither god nor satan. May as well demonize me by calling me a Djinn or a Rakshasa.
ReplyDeleteThey want to promote me to devil so they can properly hate and fear me with all their hearts and minds. Nincompoops.
Too bad Paul couldn't be more like that little gray alien in the movie "Paul." Now, he was fun.
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess Paul and Anon. gave us their best shot, a sermon, gave us their very best reasoning, presuppositionalism, which they can somehow see is woefully inadequate when it comes to us if we dare admit to it, and wonderfully self-affirming when they use it!
ReplyDelete"If you're not presupposing that there are no gods, then you admit there is a chance that the Bible is historical fact, but WE DO presuppose that GOD exists and we're damned proud of it, therefore we win! Oh why can't you atheists see what a bind you're in? Let us pray!"
Heh heh... let us pray (subverbally affirm our belief in a fable together)
ReplyDeleteThat is the argument technique allright. Presuppositions are valid when it's god on the line. Otherwise they don't count.
I guess it's hard to get christians to hang out here. We're not amenible to their nonlogic, and that really pisses them off.
Corny joke.
ReplyDeleteFarmer's sons come in from the field and tell the old patriarch that bugs have finally eaten their entire crop.
"Remember we told you about the legumes, how those aphids were after them? Well we went to church that Sunday!"
"Yes.", the old man says, "Church is good."
"Remember we told you about the corn, how those beetles were after them? Well we went to church that Sunday too!"
"Yes.", the old man says, "Church is good."
Remember we told you about the potatoes, how those caterpillars were after them? Well, we went to church again!"
"Yes.", the old man says, "Church is good, but why didn't you listen to me? Three times you told me the crops were being attacked and three times I said, "Let us spray!"
GROAN
ReplyDeleteI was curious if you ever considered changing the page layout of your website?
ReplyDeleteIts very well written; I love what youve got
to say. But maybe you could a little more in the way of content so people could connect with it better.
Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or two pictures.
Maybe you could space it out better?
Review my weblog Abercrombie Bruxelles
I think I'll keep this one. This is apparently the standard formulaic spambot message on blogs nowadays. You compliment the blog (as if you'd seen it) and then criticize it lightly, and then present a link to click on.
DeleteHuman deception nauseates me. I hate "sales." It reeks of soulless egotism and deception.
I apparently need more pictures. As if my reader base is the Kardassians.
How much you wanna bet this spamming asshole goes to church on Sundays?
ReplyDeleteI pictured a giant butt on a neck, blowing cans of spam from its asshole into a computer screen at a high rate of speed. Afterward, it went to church, opened up the hymnal, and started farting qua singing.
DeleteNobody noticed.
Incidentally, I wouldn't click on that link if I were you.
ReplyDelete"Youve got an awful lot of text for only having one or two pictures."
ReplyDeleteI put this sentence through a search engine and you would not believe how often it pops up. Or maybe you would, I dunno.
This is hysterical!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/30/michele-wanko-gun-lesson-husband-dead_n_3185790.html
Michele Wanko Accidentally Kills Husband During Drunk Gun Lesson In Pennsylvania
YEE-HAW!
UNRELATED SCIENCE QUESTION:
ReplyDeleteIf increasing entropy is why we have time, is what causes time, because events flow from low entropic conditions to higher, how does this account for change at all? Why is there any change? Time is change, no? No change, no time... how can entropy flow, without time(change) so that it doesn't always just remain the same?
Or can it be that all of the universe exists 'at once' in some way, bubt we perceive time because our consciousness is an entropic process? I\So if the entropic gradient goes up and up and then stalls and then goes down and down, we wouldn't be able to tell if we were at either end of that, because our time sense would always point to the middle of it all as "the future."
ReplyDeleteHey, back to christians and republicans...
ReplyDeleteAnybody here ever hear of "the Dunning-Kruger Efect?"
I think you're overthinking the 'time' thing. Basically it boils down to, "Why is there something instead of nothing.", since, even if there were no physical things, even if there were time, it wouldn't mean anything without any physical things.
ReplyDeleteBut we start from 'what is', don't we? We find ourselves on this planet, living through time, or over time, or because one thing happens after the other and we call that time passing.
Time passing is a major ingredient of consciousness itself, no time passing, no thinking happening, no decisions allowed, so trying to make time itself subservient to consciousness doesn't make sense to me.
One other way to think about it, is that work is going on all the 'time'. Any time work occurs entropy increases.
ReplyDeleteObviously, I agree w Ian on the requirement of time for consciousness. Cognition is a temporal event by definition.
The Dunning-Kruger effect or bias is one of the factors we consider in AI design. Many of these systems are designed to work with less skilled individuals so dealing with their self-perceptions of existing competence is important.
ReplyDeleteWe also see it in those (often less educated) individuals who put the highest premium on self-perceived common sense. Which is often a recipe for making decisions out of ignorance fueled by an inflated sense of ability (and sometimes insecurity).
We also see similar problems in people with highly specialized educations who tend to extrapolate their abilities to areas beyond their expertise (ie, don't fly with a Doctor...)
It is something to think about though. If we imagine time passing as a river flowing. Rivers only flow because time passes but for our thought-experiment, the river flowing 'is' time.
ReplyDeleteNow imagine the river turning into a glacier where time now seems to have come to a complete stop. As thinking entities outside the process we can look at the glacier and it is at a dead stop.
But it's not, it still moves, just very slowly. Why? Because the forces that caused the river to flow are still acting on it, they're just not strong enough to make that flow fast enough for our observing entities to perceive it.
Okay, now, hold that thought while we consider a black hole. We can imagine that at some point time ceases to exist inside a black hole, but 'where' does time actually stop dead? At the very centre? Since space itself has ceased to exist at this centre, this centre is literally nowhere, Elvis has left the building!
Not only has Elvis left the building but he's left an Elvis shaped hole in space-time in the shape of Elvis where he used to be 'in the building'.
But if we can point to the Elvis shaped hole and say, "That there is outside of space-time!", well, it's not, is it? We can locate it in space, over time, hardly 'outside space-time' by any standard.
Saying a hole in space-time is 'outside of spacetime itself is a conundrum since it has to be surrounded by spacetime, it has to have a location in space and be able to be referred to, over time, to be.
It's like trying to say that nothing is a certain kind of something, which is just confusing, since I can say that there is a cup there, and point to a spot on the table, but it makes no sense to point everywhere else in the universe and try to imagine a 'no that cup there' space there.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a technical definition of the mechanism by which Pride blinds us to who we really are. It's the same thing as when I say "believers believe and thinkers think, however it is indeed unfortunate that the believers always also believe that they are the thinkers."
ReplyDeleteThe fact that it should be obvious that this applies to absolutely every human being should always give us pause and re-inforce the need to critically assess one's self from time to time.
ReplyDeleteSo anyways, as long as Christians believe that God acts in the universe then God is acting in time. To say that God 'exists' outside the universe and outside of time, is only to suggest that God is imaginary, that God is simply an idea, but to say that God acts upon the universe is to say that he is an existing force to be considered when calculating the outcome of anything at all.
ReplyDeleteI think that Christians(theists) imagine God as the unexpected breeze which diverts a marksman's bullet from hitting dead-centre of the target or that God is time itself gently wafting us along from moment to moment.
In the first case then we might be able to measure God's physical influence and in the second case it would be wrong to say that God exists outside of time if He is time passing itself.
Pretty sure that Christians, when thinking about it, would be happy to imagine God as the breeze thing when that suits them and happy to change perspective and have HIM as time passing when that is convenient, since the idea is to gain converts to Christianity, not to debate whether or no the idea 'GOD' makes any sense at all.
But god is tricksey.... like Bagginses... he hides! He hides!
ReplyDeleteI'm fifty-eight today. Guess what I'm getting for my birthday from Emma! Nothing! LOL
ReplyDeleteHappy birthday Ian. My wife and I don't get presents for each other on birthdays or holidays either. We buy what we want to for ourselves if we can afford it as needed.
DeleteI swear that woman is a sociopath. Yesterday she's saying that tomorrow is my birthday, what is she going to do for it, and all that crap. Today I was hinting around that she'll wait 'til 11:55 and she's say that I should go to the Beer and Wine and get some rum and it'll be closed.
DeleteAround 8 I zipped off to get myself a drink, my meatloaf was on. On the way, Meatloaf was playing, hah!
But, when I got back she said I ran out the door so unexpectedly she was disappointed that I hadn't asked her what she'd like to drink.(when I do she always makes a face and doesn't want anything)
So I was like, "Geez, a spoiler, eh?", she's trying to spoil my drink. To top that off, I finished making supper, meatloaf, mashed spuds and carrots. It's just about ready and she wants to know if there is gravy now.
GRAVY? Who makes gravy for meatloaf? Another spoiler. Supper is going to be no good 'cos there's no gravy with fucking meatloaf like we've EVER had gravy with meatloaf before.
It was delicious! And, of course no fucking gravy.
These spoilers aren't supposed to be obvious, they're supposed to instill a subconscious(non-verbal) sense of having done something wrong. Not offering her to buy booze for her birthday(what a bastard I am what with no booze for her for someone's birthday, right?), and a dinner that is just not 100%, no gravy, y'see.
I'm thinking she'll remember it like an asshole remembers his loan to you as your loan to him after six months.
It was a birthday and 'someone' didn't get booze, so it's 'someone's' fault, right? See, same thing.
Happy belated birthday Great Scot.
DeleteJust remember you're doing something wrong!
Here's one right up your alley, St Brian.
ReplyDeleteAre Christians more christ-like or more Pharisee-like?
Or this this more appropriate for Harry?
Here's the thing, what's so bad about being a Pharisee? The chicks are hot, the cash cold, and consequences lukewarm at best. Empathy and sympathy burden an individual with unnecessary emotions, and it takes immense patience to examine others' viewpoints in light of inherent equality.
DeleteFuck all that.
Jesus accidentally started the franchise, I'll give him that. But I'm the motherfuckin Phranchisee. If you want revenue and an easy life be like me.
Mac I think this study is part of a larger truth: Regardless of the measure or aspect being evaluated, more than 50% of people are totally full of it.
ReplyDeleteI can't disagree, Pliny. Well, maybe - I'd guess 50% generous
ReplyDeleteTed Cruz making noises that he might run for POTUS is asked if it's not true that he was born in CANADA!!!
ReplyDeleteThree possible answers!(I know, you might think only two.
1) Why yes I was born in CANADA!(therefore I cannot ever be POTUS!)
2)I was born in the good ol' USA! (yippee kayay motherfucker!)
3)His actual answer: I'll leave those questions for some other people!
I'm no genius, and in fact I've recently drank most of a 2 litre bottle of 7% alcohol by volume Rockaberry, but I believe answer 3 actually means answer 1, but he's hoping no-one will notice!!
I thought his answer was more self-inflated even than that. It sounded to me like he was saying "some other people might change that law for me if they like me enough."
ReplyDeleteI just found out that one of Cruz's parents, his mom I think, was a US citizen, so that won't stop him. It's legal even if he was born in Canada.
ReplyDeleteOkay, I want to share this with you. Something keeps happening on Salvia.
ReplyDeleteI typically sit in a straight chair next to my bed. My wife is also typically asleep on that bed giving the time that I usually do it. The pug is asleep at her feet, again on the bed, on the side away from me. So I do the hit, and hold it, and let it go, and wait... a glow starts up in the upper right hand (as I'm sitting alongside the bed, facing the foot of the bed on my left side, a wall about six feet in front of me) corner of the room... the glow spreads and spirals around the ceiling in a counterclockwise rotation, and starts to fill the room. As the glow (which contains swirling geometrics) fills the room, it nears and then touches the sleeping pug. The pug snorts loudly in it's sleep... then it's touching my wife... she moans and stirs also.
And the even stranger thing, this is *not the first time this has happened.* It's happening fairly often. Last week I did the salvia, had the light come around me and through me, the dog saw the light coming for him and moved to the head of the bead on my side to get away from it, and later on (about five minutes) I learned that at very nearly the same time, at the other end of the house, my son's cat started meowing so loud that he got up to play with her and comfort her.
What IS this STUFF?
Also, forgot to mention that afterwards the pug was up on and off all night, on the bed, walking around, very atypical. Kept trying to lay on the pillow my wife's head was on.
DeleteTwo nights ago, I caught a glimpse of myself. Standing to my immediate right... a very, very faint transparent "ghost" of me, his(my) face about a foot away from mine, looking to the left. For about three seconds, then it faded.
ReplyDeleteJust out of curiosity, I'm keeping track on my other blog about Salvia Divinorum experiences... I didn't talk about it here because hey, I really think you hear about salvia enough right here from me that you're not going to want to go to a whole blog about it. However I am noticing hits and wondered... how many of you have been there? I think Ian has, since I see western Canada on my hit map... anybody else?
ReplyDeleteI've been getting hits from Russia and the U.K. as well.
ReplyDeleteI suspect you can guess what I'm going to say about the drug associated experiences. Your perceptions and recollections of events under the influence of a dissociative drug aren't likely to be a reliable indicator of what an outside observer would have witnessed. After all, that's what this class of drugs do - they create perceptions of dissociation from self, from surroundings and from actions. That it all seems real is a testament to the way brains actually work. It's also what scares me about these drugs. There are probably very good evolutionary reasons why these neuro pathways aren't active normally. There is also too strong of a correlation between these drugs and Schizophrenia, both in it's symptoms and possible development.
ReplyDeleteAnything that can effect neuroplastic changes in a brain is a dangerous chemical in my book (and I include THC in that list).
In some ways you are experiencing a corollary to what a religious person experiences. A meme is planted in their brain- subsequent experiences are culled for any data that can be fit to the meme (confirmation bias) regardless of frequency (neglect of probability). Neuroplastic changes occur in the brain that strengthen perceived associations (stimulus association). At this point acceptance of the original meme is hardwired. The same process allows a person like Eric to really believe, through repeated stimulus association that his perceptions of truth are anchored in objective reality. At some point our programming limits the types of data to which we are open.
Yes I know I'm a neurochemical downer boy but this is my day job after all ;)
Sure Pliny, I know that, and I really don't care. Surprising? I am still me, and still feel the same, and I enjoy these experiences immensely. And guess what? I could (almost) have written what you just typed. I think of that side, too. It's still speculations to me, at least on the inside, what I tell myself, however interesting. I still think of it as a possibility rather than my belief. I give it credence, but never as much as consensual reality. To be honest, I'm a happier person for it. I take note that the phenomena often are re-inforcing my already-held speculations, so I consider that I may be creating them by my desire to see what I want to see, and I know that's still likely what it all is, but I won't stop it. My wife would stop me if I had changed in any material way, but she even tells me that it seems to have been good for me, that it's "my substance" in that I seem to handile it very well, and that I'm even healthier since starting on it. Which is true. So I do appreciate the warning from a friend, and I take it under consideration, never dismiss it. Thank you. But I like me better this way.
ReplyDeletePlus, seriously, the dog sees it too. Or seems to, convincingly. I don't give up on an experiment when it is finally showing real-world objective results, in the sense of no drug that I take would wake the dog up with my hallucinations from it. Others, even dogs, do not see people's visions with them. More investigation is required. Plus also, coincidences are up in my regular life.
I'm more open to something like this than you are, for good reason. Your entire education is telling you that it's what you think it is, but I have a different outlook. Please don't fear for me. Any changes, are ones that I like and welcome. I'm easily bored in this life, and this is fucking interesting!
Oh, and if you're against THC, than heck, we're never gonna see eye to eye. Dude, seriously? I was a fucking OGRE before I started using that stuff... saved my life practically. I could never stand the incessant ideas, thoughts, concepts, random stories, and general level of screamingly intense thought that was for most of my life my baseline. Could never sleep, could never really relax, always anxious, always nervous, always THINKING on and on and on.... like even voices in my head, but my own voices, always following things around in circles... reading helped, but still couldn't sleep... and I react bad to perscription meds, make me feel dead inside... THC is a wonder drug for me. And salvia compliments it extraordinarily will in many ways.
ReplyDeleteAnything that can effect neuroplastic changes in a brain is a dangerous chemical in my book (and I include THC in that list).
ReplyDelete-----------------
Quick! Stop eating your favorite foods! And cut out the sex! And don't form any habits of thought! Do not do interesting things!
Do you know Pliny, that for all my life I carried tension around with me in my gut. Developed IBS in my twenties...
ReplyDeleteMarijuana helped with that more than you can even imagine.
However, salvia did more. I've never felt absolutely relaxed and centered before, didn't even know what that meant. Salvia shows me a calm inside that is like a vast underground cavern untouched by man or animal... beautiful absolute calm and in the moment with nothing bothering me...
Oh, and by the way, another interesting thing... this multiuniverse stuff, this kind of thing is what almost ALL users of slavia experience... look up other experiences on the web... It's not me that makes it show multiple planes of existence, even though that was what I was thinking before taking it... that's what it generally shows!
So, another datum.
The last day that I ever had trouble with IBS was the first day I started using salvia. For real. It just shut it off like a switch.
ReplyDeleteWhen I worked in Texas for eight months, in the first three I could not find anybody to sell me weed. THen I did, and used it regularly for the last five months.
ReplyDeleteAt the end of that I was having a conversation with my boss down there, one Vess Barnes. He would have so fired my ass if he knew that I smoked weed. But this is what he told me. He said "Brian, when you first got here you were so nervous and jittery I didn't think you'd last much longer, but after a few months you calmed right down and I wasn't worried about it anymore.
So there's another datum for me.
There are probably very good evolutionary reasons why these neuro pathways aren't active normally.
ReplyDelete-------------
What if the good reasons are so we aren't confused by seeing actual existing multiple levels of reality at the same time?
Don't get me wrong, I think there are valid medical reasons for using THC. But like any medication there are potential side effects that have to be weighed. It's not education it's neurophysiology. These drugs alter brains in permanent ways. People choose that path all the time, because some of them like it. Me, I don't think it's worth the cost.
ReplyDeleteI understand. I can accept that. I find it to be a bargain at what cost I've experienced. I've now smoked weed steadily for seventeen years... I think it's a bit late for me to be worried about my neuroplasticity with that substance... salvia for almost three years, all the time.. again, a bit too late to change it now.
ReplyDeleteI get precisely one life that I am aware of. Most of it, I spent as a nervous wreck. Why would I long for that and discontinue what has given me more reason to live?
ReplyDeletePeeks in, "Oh, I see you're with the doctor.", I'll come back later.
ReplyDeleteHAH!
ReplyDeletePliny, have you ever heard anything about the basis of consciousness being elecrical energy, as in, electrical energy constitutes the part of consciousness that gives a sensation of "I" and not anything physical in the structure of the brain or body?
ReplyDeleteJust something I ran across.. is it as silly as it sounds?
May the Fourth be with you!
ReplyDeleteIt probably is as silly as it sounds. There is an enormous amount of misinformation out there about consciousness. Part of it is that most people don't understand that there is a huge difference between membrane depolarization and ion exchange and 'bolts of electricity'. The former is a part of how the brain operates, the latter, not at all.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I sorta get acetylcholinesterase and sodium channels and electronegativity progress through the axon... still, it IS energy at work. I knew there were no 'sparks' doing it.
ReplyDeleteWell, sadly B, simply knowing that sparks aren't involved puts one in the top 75% :) New cartoons are posted too if you get a chance to gander
ReplyDeletePliny, is there anything you *can't* do well? Polymaths annoy me, so here's my riposte:
ReplyDelete"Pliny's cartonist alter ego"
Let's see, what's wrong here.... hmmm.... O!
The cartoons are pretty much professional quality, Very nice. Funny too.
ReplyDeleteThe funny part is the important one, with cartoons ;)
ReplyDeleteTwo infallibles must equal one fallible. It's basic math.
ReplyDeleteYou could probably get them published. Ever think of trying?
ReplyDeleteNot really. If they ever take off, I might. But I think all of 3 people have seen them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it works that way, Pliny. I do belive that the publishing business generally doesn't have internet scouts. :-) Seriously though, you need to submit them to someone. I'll take my 10% agent's fee, thank you.
ReplyDeletemostly I do them because it relieves tension. Instead of engaging with serious theologians I just make fun of what they say,
ReplyDeleteSo then, I guess what I'm saying is that people would pay to see you masturbate like that. Or whatever.
ReplyDeleteYou always have such a poetic way of putting things ;)
ReplyDeleteThank you. I'll be here all week.
ReplyDeleteUm. Did Brian just call you a jerk off? LOL Just kiddin'!
ReplyDeletePliny, Ian, I've been thinking lately (I try to limit it, but it snuck up on me) that when a liberal insults a gun fanatic right winger or tea partier or whatever, even if they insult us first and it's just an insult back in return, their programming reads it as confirmation of their prejudice against us. They see it as proof positive that we're profane and evil and such nonsense. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteThe gun fetish should have a DSM V designation. it is a form of dangerous paranoid delusion that is self-sustaining, just like any other fantasy belief system. Delusions, by definition, are fed by any and all of a delusional person's experiences. If you say something it's proof of their fears. If you don't say anything, they imagine you are plotting in secret.
ReplyDeleteMy advise is simple - screw em.
I was wondering what would happen if I were to agree with one of them and tell them every paranoid fantasy they have about us is true, only accentuate it through irony right into open sarcasm.
ReplyDeleteLike "I shouldn't tell you this but I just can't hide it from good Americans any longer: we are definitely secretly wanting to tak all guns away from the people and we all know that Obama is a Muslim and so on... "
SO apparently the new president of the NRA is even more of a wingnut than Wayne LaPierre. He openly stated that the NRA wants Americans to stock up on weapons for the express purpose of rebellion against the United States Government.
ReplyDeleteAs the founders intended. Not.
I'll have to branch out into NRA cartoons next.
ReplyDeleteThe timing would be right to make some money with that idea if you did.
ReplyDeleteI may have to. I just offended 1 billion people today with my latest.
ReplyDeleteThe gun fetish is just too sad to parody.
I looked for your latest there... um, donde esta?
ReplyDeleteThe only way to stop a bad guy with a dildo, is a good guy with a dildo!
ReplyDeleteThe only way to stop a bad guy with a dildo, is a vagina of justice.
DeleteAll hail Vajustice!!
The new stuff was on the cartoon site B, no the regular ranting one.
ReplyDeleteHarry, is that a memeber the Justice League?
ReplyDeleteVajustice can't be a member... of anything. ;)
DeleteVajustice. I think I dated her once.
ReplyDeleteDid anybody ever notice that the NRA's pet slogan there cuts both ways?
ReplyDelete"The only thing that can stop a good guy with a gun, is a bad guy with a gun."
Works fine that way too.
I liked the one about the four or five small kids who either shot themselves or shot someone else in the past couple of weeks. Surely the only thing that can stop a bad toddler with a gun is a good toddler with a gun, no?
ReplyDeleteThis is a mass psychosis. You talk to the gun nuts online and they are scarily crazy, all turned around in the head, like their brain polarity got reversed or something. It's unnerving to actually talk to the insane. Makes me more than a little queasy.
ReplyDeleteIt helps to admit that you are confused. Once you believe that, and you may think that it's playing into their hands, but once you admit that you are indeed confused, you don't need resolution. As long as you need resolution to a confusion that you're not, perhaps dare not admit to, you're playing to their game, the Confusion Technique relies on you being confused and never admitting it. The people you feel are crazy, those same people who are confusing you, were confused themselves and refused to admit it, in the end the resolution for them was the true-believer status they gained. They are believers in the obvious nonsense of ideology.(whether far left or far right)
ReplyDeleteIt's confusing, and the only escape is to become an ideologue. The more ideologues there are, the more confusing it is since they only hate you if you're not one of them!
I went through to Emma's room with a cigarette rolled for her. and asked her if she'd like another coffee.
ReplyDelete"Would you like another cup of coffee?"
"I suppose."
"How about a smoke?"
"Yea sure!"
"How come you're definitely sure about wanting the smoke but not so sure about the coffee?"
"Well, I was waiting so long, I was just about to get up and have a bath!"
"Oh, I didn't realise that I was taking long, you know how time slips by and you don't notice it?"
She's filing her nails while I trot off to get her coffee.
I'm thinking, "I'm confused, I'm getting shit for asking her if she'd like coffee?"
I pour the coffee and say out loud, "I'm confused, here I am pouring you a coffee after I feel like I've just been given shit for offering you this same coffee!"
"Oh.", she says, disdainfully, "Your confused again."
So I explain that there I was making coffee for her while I was feeling that I had just been getting shit for offering 'almost too late' and I'm doing it while feeling that I really don't want to now, although I had wanted to do it. I don't expect undying admiration and gratitude for a lousy cup of java but, I don't expect to be getting sly digs about my 'timing' either.
I wonder if everyone talks to each other like this or if Emma is a sociopath, since she consistently does this kind of thing. I'll offer her something and, in no time I'm walking away to do that thing for her, thinking that I don't want to do it for her anymore. I feel as if the only way she can relate to me is 'opposite day'. I'm thinking I'm doing something for her, but she wants me to do it while not 'wanting to do it for her'.
She is the wheel-chair bound one and I get the feeling that I'm being blamed for her disability. It's not only that I can't do enough for her, it's also that she seems to automatically 'poison' the deed, to make me not really want to do it in the act of doing it.
I feel that this is a natural 'confusion technique', she is no expert on the subject, not qua hypnotist, since she doesn't 'think like a hypnotist', a natural 'confusion technique' since apparently I'm 'just wrong' as far as she is concerned, 'just wrong'.
Admitting that I am indeed confused helps, in fact lately I've been saying, "I'm confused.", to her a lot lately.
I think it's a woman thing to want to punish us if we're not fast enough or whatever, like it makes them feel superior. It's not logical.
ReplyDeleteAh well, at least it isn't just Emma being sociopathic then, though she might still be that, I don't feel so worried about it 'cos there is no cure or talking sociopaths out of their sickness.
ReplyDeleteEmma does ease off since I complaining about being confused by her, but then being totally honest and straightforward about why it is that I'm confused. She must see the obvious, which is that although I'm saying I'm confused about her style of communication, I'm not confused in the sense that I'm dumbfounded, that I don't know what is hitting me, I'm telling her that basically, I'm on to her, the game isn't working on me. Still, I have to do it in a way that is not a game, not the game itself, no 'winner', no 'loser', or it will not work, it just gets swamped out by the regular rolling game, where the object is for her to win by demanding more and more until she is actually complaining that I'm not anticipating her needs(reading her fricking mind).
"Why isn't supper ready, don't you know I'm hungry?"(we haven't discussed what she'd like to eat, which is no problem when that game is in full swing 'cos I'm supposed to know that anyways, even though she hasn't decided herself!)
No point in calling her names, that's just ammunition in her favor, "You called me (such and such)!!!"
Asi es la vida.
http://www.upworthy.com/youve-heard-the-anti-gay-leviticus-bible-quote-but-have-you-heard-the-very-next-line?c=bl3
ReplyDeletePretty cool!
ReplyDeleteTherefore, it is imperative that business setups make the most of this tool and get there brands out in the
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Was that Latin?
ReplyDeleteLike spamming a Chinese blog with Spanish.
ReplyDeletePeeb, men are just as bad in their way, but women emotionally bully like they breathe. Why society finds it acceptable I'll never know.
ReplyDeleteI think our gender patterns of behavior evolved as an example of asymmetrical warfare.
ReplyDeleteCare to 'splain that one, Pliny? I'm interested!
ReplyDeleteIf I could hazard a guess, he in part means the male tendency to physical violence has a correlate in the female and both are tools of survival.
ReplyDeleteIf he's truly saying 'asymmetrical warfare' is causal to these behaviors though, I be flummoxed.
Or phlegm oxed.
DeleteI think it's the blue pill that stops you replying to yourself, or it that one for high blood pressure? I need some Ritalin!
DeleteWhale oil beef hooked.
ReplyDeleteHarry pretty much explained my comment. Genders have no doubt evolved and developed differing strategies for getting what they want. Because of the historical difference in physical power (before little girls got black belts...) it does have a bit of asymmetry to it.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble, the problem with that argument is, Pliny, that the right-wingers use the same kind of arguments, they are emotion based arguments not logical arguments at all, and they are all, old white guys, or women pretending to be old white guys. Even black Republicans are old white guys in black bodies, using emotional arguments for the sake of power.
ReplyDeleteHitler was an old white guy making the emotional argument that old white guys are 'the best' and everyone else sucks, right?
I mean come on, if you don't agree with me I'll stamp my feet and hold my breath and set the dogs on some not-white people!
I didn't say I thought it was a great thing pboy. I don't think it is. But, as I've argued for(ever) quite some time, we need to understand the biological mechanisms that drive these behaviors.
ReplyDeleteLet me ask you something. Take the above examples you cite of right wing behavior. You have argued (and I tend to agree) that free will is an illusion at least as far as we typically define it. Do these individuals exercise free will in action, or are they programmed to behave this way?
(B FYI - new comic posted called 'occupational hazard' was inspired by one of your previous visitors ;))
Yea Pliny, I'm agreeing with you and adding that guys do that too. Argument from emotion is the worst because the only thing it settles is ... well it doesn't settle anything at all. If that kind of argument works to some extent, it's always vulnerable to logical argument, right? If you argue everyone around into a worldview or doctrine, whether it be one woman hen-pecking her husband, a tyrant oppressing other countries and/or segments of the local population, it has to be a completely illogical emotional arguments like:-
ReplyDeleteOur government must operate using Biblical standards.
Government is simply a tool to help cut-throat capitalists become richer and more powerful because they're our heroes, they're our success stories!
Corporations can and will police themselves, because it is in their best interests.
No matter how many examples of the failure, if not danger of these policies surface or are brought to their attention, it is, apparently, not the ideology itself that is to blame, right?
Back to the basic person to person thing. No matter how carefully one can explain how certain courses of action are the best, it's the feelings of everyone concerned that counts more than anything else, more that reality itself.
Oh no doubt, emotion (and perception) trumps reality right up to the point that physics or physiology takes over. In the end the Second Law always wins.
ReplyDeleteMy basic concern has always been this - if will is programmable, what does that mean for the fate of democracy? If we are semi-autonomous animals driven by the same minute to minute self-survival programming that dictated reproductive success in our ancestor forms, can we even expect that as a species we can address long-term threats? Is democracy even a viable government based on our biology?
Honestly, I really don't believe that it is, though I have absolutely no alternative to suggest.
Said another way, democracy is predicated on a classical and naive philosophical understanding of consciousness and mind, not biological reality.
ReplyDeleteYea, I see what you're getting at. There'll always be the haves who want to jimmy the system to ensure that they get more, wanting to believe the 'makers and the takers' POV because they see the have-nots as lesser beings/the cause of their own suffering/God is letting them suffer/wicked 'others' kind of thing.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe we have the free will to wake up one morning and realize that we are rationalizing that that new yacht and expensive car are not the reason we're greedy bastards. There may well be some who have a Scrooge moment but I think most of us are happy in our roles or at least stuck in our roles, otherwise it would be so easy to take a step back and see our real selves.
United States
ReplyDelete1848
France
366
Canada
135
Russia
77
Poland
42
Germany
39
Indonesia
27
India
25
United Kingdom
24
Sweden
19
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These are my "hits" this month on this blog!
A lot of people read it and do not comment, apparently.
Strange.
On my salvia blog I have readers from south korea, india, russia (a lot), brazil, pakistan (!), and a bunch of other places... greece... all over the world...
I guess you never really can know who you're talking to and who is listening.
ReplyDeleteWhoa.
ReplyDeleteThe Times They Are A Changin?
Now, that is incredible. I uess this papa isn't such a bad dude after all.
DeleteSo, that's that for my cockatiel. He flew out the door. Damn.
ReplyDeleteOh no!!!!!!!!!!! I am SO SORRY!!!
ReplyDeleteIt was just a weird set of circumstances. I got used to taking the dog out and the bird would be fine, he'd jump on my shoulder but I'd drop him off, no problem.
ReplyDeleteBut the car broke down and Emma's sons came over to have a look at it. One of the guys went in to talk to his mom and I stood at the door talking to the other one, 'cos I really just wanted someone to turn the key so I could tell where the starter is.
Right then the bird flew by my head, so, never mind the car, I went after him and called to him, I could see him in a tree.
But then he flew further away and did big circles around me, me calling him all the time. Then he headed away through the trees and out of sight.
So I went home and the guys are busy trying to fool me into believing that the A/C compressor is the starter. They got a neighbor who is a bit of a mechanic to have a look, and, I'm not sure if he thought the compressor was the starter or no, he's very quiet, very, very quiet.
I said that I'd buy a starter, which I thought was $80, and he could swap them.
Something was bothering me about it though, the starter is working but it's not cranking the motor, so I thought we had better get it out of the car and check it before I got another one. Another point being that they want $300 for a refurbished starter, after they tack on the taxes and such.
Anyways, I took another look and noticed that that 'starter' looked suspiciously like not a starter at all. LOL
So I asked that neighbor mechanic quiet dude if he would take the old one out since I didn't want to spring $300 for a starter if the other one was working, maybe some teeth fell out of the fly-wheel, or maybe there's a loose wire on the solenoid stopping the bendix from operating like it ought to.
Meanwhile I got some booze and had a drink for my bird. I kept him from zipping off for about 8 or 9 years, I'll never forget him. It's hard to believe that earlier he was turning my toast into crumbs, making a mess all over me, then he was just gone, like Kaiser Soze.
So sad.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbh5l0b2-0o
ReplyDeleteNEW POST IS UP
ReplyDelete